


Three Days of Rain

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cabin Fic, Eventual Smut, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Phil Coulson, The Retreat, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 01:48:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5187554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy and Coulson have to lay low for a couple of days. In the cabin. Alone. And it won't stop raining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Days of Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hamsterfactor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterfactor/gifts).



He sees her fidgeting already – it's been half an hour – and smiles.

"You're not very good at being idle. Are you?"

Someone like Daisy, no chance. She just can't sit still.

It's actually one of her best qualities, if you ask Coulson.

It's the first time Daisy is back in the Retreat since Calderon shot her outside this cabin. Coulson could feel the uneasiness in her as they walked in and she threw a glance back at the woods, still bearing the scar of Daisy's powers in the artificial clearing to the south west side. He understands how it's weird for her to be here again, and he's grateful that this time he can stay with her. 

Not that he has any choice in the matter, of course.

"I just wish I could use my laptop," she sighs. "And for this stupid rain to stop."

"No contact, no computers, radio silence until this tides over," Coulson reminds her. "May and Mack will pick us up in a couple of days, that was the deal."

Daisy nods.

"There are not even board games in here."

"At least we have each other's company," he teases.

She smiles warmly. "Okay, but we have that everyday."

"Maybe we can make a fire?" Coulson suggests.

That takes them up to an hour, so it's actually a good way of killing time. Coulson wishes he had gone to more survival-in-the-wilderness courses in the Academy, instead of taking so many dancing classes and something that could be best described as "improv for spies". Daisy has less of an idea of how to lit a fire than he does and admits it took her about four hours to do it herself when she got left behind here the first time, and thank the deities that there was some wood inside the house because with this weather is probable the stock outside has been ruined by the rain. Thank the deities that there's an actual manual in one of the drawers and instructions on how to use lighter fluid to start the fireplace.

"We have conquered the elements," Daisy declares once they get some nice flames going.

"I am the Director of SHIELD for a reason," Coulson jokes back.

She looks at the fire for a moment.

"Okay, but now I'm bored again."

 

+

 

It looks like she has finally quietened down and now he is the one with the problem keeping still, keeping himself from fidgeting.

They had decided to lazy around on the couch for a while, the only source of entertainment in the cabin a small but quite eclectic library. They both picked a volume and sat down. It reminds Coulson of when they work together in the office and he's always impressed at how quiet Daisy could be – so quiet one could almost forget she was there in the first place. Not a bad trait for a spy and Coulson always wondered how she could become invisible so easily for someone so... well, noticeable in certain aspects.

But he's the one finding it hard to keep this silence between them.

"What are you reading?" he asks.

Daisy looks up from her book.

"It's the biography of Robert S. MacNamara," she tells him.

"You _are_ bored."

She chuckles. It occurs to Coulson that he hasn't seen her this relaxed in ages. Even when she plays videogames with Mack she has this wound-up vibe to her. Now he looks at her shoulders and he is almost glad for the messy extraction, their identities compromised, the forced vacation.

"It's pretty interesting, actually," she says. She then leans forward, crossing her legs on the couch. "Hey. Did you father go to Vietnam?"

At first he's thrown off by the sudden question (and its private nature), then he actually remembers who Robert MacNamara is.

"Luckily no," Coulson replies. "He was the right age but he was a teacher, they needed teachers back home. And he just had a kid, that helped."

"I'm glad," Daisy says.

"Yeah," he says, pensive. "I remember it as something vague but very present. The war. A lot of my parents' childhood friends were killed. Even as a kid, you remember that kind of stuff." He notices Daisy's expression, very solemn, very focused on him. "You must be thinking I'm very old."

She shakes her head. "No, I wasn't thinking that."

He doesn't know if he believes her, but it makes him feel good to hear it anyway.

She goes back to her book.

"And yours?" she asks after a while. "You seem... _fidgety_."

"It's a mystery," he tells her. "But I think I've read this one before so..."

"It's not much of a mystery?"

Coulson nods and puts the book away. The rain is pouring harder now, already dark outside. He gets up and goes to the window. There are tendrils of water sliding down the glass. He wonders what time it is, he can't tell by the darkness outside. 

He turns towards Daisy. "Are you hungry?" he asks.

Daisy leaves the book on the table and gets up at the words, walking towards her.

"Starved. What do we have?"

Coulson gives the cupboards a dismayed look. They didn't have time to pack too much decent food.

"Just basic stuff."

Daisy shrugs, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans.

"I don't mind," she tells him. "I admit I'm not that picky. You should see the kind of stuff I was eating when I lived in my van."

"It's a miracle you're alive."

"Says the guy who has packed a whole bag of Cookie Dough Bites. I doubt you'd survive the zombie apocalypse," she tells her.

What can he say, he likes comfort food.

And he's seen those zombie movies, they have Twinkies, he's not that far off.

When he checks what they have to work with he suddenly _remembers_ and he freezes at the idea of cooking.

"We only have simple stuff," he repeats.

"It's okay," Daisy says behind him. "I'm sure _you_ can do wonders with it."

He turns and tries very hard not to make a face at that but Daisy catches him anyway.

"What?"

"I'm not sure I'm that good at cooking anymore. Or that fast," he says, holding up his left hand.

"Oh." Daisy's expression softens in a heartbreaking way – this is why he doesn't want to talk to her about this – and then she gives him a little smile.

"It's fine, just... maybe it's not fine."

"Hey, look, it's the perfect chance to practice," she tells him. "The rain is not going to let up, and you have plenty of time."

He thinks about all the time he spent learning how to pour himself a fucking cup of coffee and anger grips him – the anger he has been pushing down for months and months. The anger he is very careful not to let anyone see (frustration, yes, sadness, yes, but not the ugly self-serving anger at the bottom of his stomach) but he thinks maybe it will be okay, if Daisy sees it. Maybe she won't think there's something wrong and ugly inside him.

"I really haven't tried to cook since..." he confesses, unable to finish. There are lots of things he thought it would be easier if he gave up, rather than knowing for sure he couldn't do anymore.

She rests her hand over Coulson's left wrist, her thumb over the spot where his pulse would have been.

"Hey, relax," she tells him, patting his back softly. "I'm going to grab a shower. You figure out what we're going to have for dinner meanwhile. I'll _help_."

 

+

 

When she comes out of the shower she has her hair wet and she's wearing a henley-style white top. They've practically lived together for the last couple of years and Coulson has seen her in a variety of situations, but something about being here trapped in the cabin, waiting to be picked up, waiting for the rain to stop, makes him look at her in a new way. He thinks: this is what it feels like to live with Daisy Johnson. Outside ops and outside mission uniforms. Outside long days of everybody in danger. Just Daisy coming out of the shower with her hair still wet, wearing comfortable clothes and walking up to him as he prepares dinner for both of them. And it's not a bad feeling.

"Could you help me chop the vegetables?" he asks. "I wouldn't want to lose my other hand."

"Ha ha."

"I'm going to start small. With a soup."

"That sounds delicious."

He gives her the carrots and he tries his hand (bad pun but inevitable) with the leeks, softer, easier. He goes slow, very slow, his old confidence, lost.

"I haven't cooked in eight months."

"I've never really cooked," she shrugs. "Never really learned how to."

"I spent a lot of time alone as a kid, I kind of had to learn. I've always relied on it. It was something that I was comfortable with, I could fall back on. Cooking. And to lose that skill from one day to the next..."

Even the bad times right after his mother died he could still comfort himself by making her favorite recipes in the little kitchen in his tiny flat, the first one he got outside Academy grounds. It's always been a source of pleasure in his life. He's never been specially smart or athtletic but he has always taken pride in his skills in the kitchen. Lost in thought suddenly he feels Daisy's hand on the small of his back.

"I don't know if I've said this enough but what happened to you is awful. I'm really sorry," she tells him, every word weighted with unnecessary but Daisy-like guilt.

Coulson shakes his head. "Not your fault."

"No. Just my crazy mom's."

"Still not you fault."

Daisy nods at him and keeps on cutting the carrots. They go on cooking in silence. Coulson does well enough with the leeks that he gives the onions a try. It takes forever but he manages. He realizes he's never going to be able to handle this kind of stuff as well as before, but he tries to just face that fact, be glad with whatever flexibility his robot hand can give him. Alone he would have probably indulge in self-pity a lot more. He's grateful he's not alone.

It's almost nice, having someone else helping him along. He's not used to that. He's never really cooked _with_ anyone before. He's either cooked for himself or friends (or Jemma Simmons once) or for lovers whom Coulson never let help him in anything. He wonders why he's never brought anyone else into it, why he's never let anyone in when it comes to this.

 

+

 

While the soup cooks Daisy goes back to the couch and starts painting her toenails with green polish.

The image is a bit too domestic. Not in a bad way, but Coulson feels a bit awkward nonetheless.

"What?" she notices him staring. "I'm bored, I told you."

"I didn't say anything," he protests.

"Hand me the bag of cotton, will you."

At first he wonders when she had time to pack cotton balls (not that he is judging) but then he realizes it's just first aid kit cotton she found in the bathroom and is tearing into little balls. Coulson tries making one himself, testing his lift hand on it. Daisy watches on, "I'm impressed" when he passes the perfectly shaped ball to fit between two toes.

He waits until she finishes, watching on. He doesn't mean to be rude or intrusive but it's quite mesmerizing.

"I'm surprised at your choice of color," he tells her.

"You're criticizing, Director?"

He chuckles. "No, no. But on your nails you normally use clear or brown."

"You noticed that?" Daisy asks.

Coulson feels like she has caught him red-handed but he's not sure what crime he's supposed to have committed. 

"We spend a lot of time working together," he explains. "Do I notice your nail polish? Sometimes." 

She widens her eyes a bit, more like she's impressed than bothered. Coulson watches her careful fingers work each layer of polish with patient. The woman who was fidgeting furiously hours ago now she has such a steady, calm gestures. It's fascinating. Coulson decides that color looks good on her.

"I don't normally paint my toenails," Daisy says. "Not much reason for a SHIELD agent to spend that much time on grooming, right?"

It's a joke, probably, but Coulson can hear the loneliness in her voice. He can identify it because he feels the same. God he knows _exactly_ what she means but she is so young and warm, she shouldn't be made to feel like this.

Like him.

 

+

 

"Now _this_ was a great idea," Daisy says, wrapping her fingers around the warm mug.

"Yeah, even though cocoa in powder? Not the best way to make yourself a cup of hot chocolate."

"Well, I like it, so stop whining."

They decided to sit in front of the fire after dinner – the soup wasn't the greatest thing anyone has ever tasted but at least he knows that yes, he can still cook – and make themselves a mug of chocolate. He suddenly has the thought _well, we never got to have marshmallows that time_ and he is a bit shock that he even remembers but he remembers, he remembers Daisy's trying to make it sound light but with a tone of hopelessness, like it hurt her to watch him leave the cabin that time. A lot of things have happened since then, he's surprised he remembers. Maybe this is a way to make it up to Daisy, for that time he walked away. This is boring for her, of course, but at least it's not painful, and at least she is not alone.

He looks at the fire in front of him, noticing something.

The flames start to move in strange, incongrous shapes.

"Are you doing that?" he asks Daisy.

She bits her bottom lip, like she's slightly embarrassed (she shouldn't be).

"Yeah."

He blinks at the image. The heat stings his eyes. Or maybe it's just the wondruous idea of her powers.

"You're amazing."

He meant to say _what your do is amazing_ or _your powers are amazing_ but...

Daisy looks at him amused.

 

+

 

"I let you take the couch tonight but tomorrow we change," she tells him.

"I'm over fifty, me and my back are not going to fight you on that," Coulson agrees while she hands him the second pillow. The joke is not great. Technically they have slept closer than this, the bunks in the plane, interconnecting hotel rooms a couple of times. He still feels awkward, sleeping under the same roof, alone.

Daisy walks towards the bedroom, turning around and rapping her knuckles against the frame of the door.

"Good night, sir."

The use of _sir_ is a bit strange but it doesn't sound impersonal at all. 

"Good night, Daisy," he replies warmly.

She disappears into the next room with a pensive expression on her face.

Coulson waits until she has closed the door and strips down to his t-shirt and boxers and puts his prosthetic away in its case.

He stays awake a long time, listening to the rain fall, the sound of it against the wooden panels of the house enevloping him in an echo. It feels like they are the last two people on earth.

Coulson wonders if Daisy is listening to the rain too.


End file.
